Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
President Bush’s margin last year over Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, 2.4 percentage points, was the smallest of any victorious presidential incumbent in history. He won a very close election. But in most of the country, the 2004 race wasn’t even close to being close. A Pew Research Center analysis shows that in the majority [...]
Introduction Although former Vermont governor Howard Dean failed to win the Democratic presidential nomination, his campaign left a strong imprint on the political world. It assembled a network of over a half-million active supporters and contributors, raised over $20 million in mostly small donations online, and demonstrated the power of the internet as a networking [...]
Summary of Findings Six weeks after President Bush’s victory, the divisions that were so apparent in the election show no signs of narrowing. The public remains split over the president’s job performance, the situation in Iraq, and the state of the national economy. But Bush voters are upbeat on all three questions 92% approve [...]
Summary of Findings Campaign 2004 receives generally favorable marks from the voters. An overwhelming 86% say they learned enough about the candidates to make an informed choice, while two-thirds express satisfaction with the choice of candidates. However, voters also believe this campaign was more negative than previous contests 72% say there was more mud-slinging [...]
Summary of Findings President George W. Bush holds a slight edge over Senator John Kerry in the final days of Campaign 2004. The Pew Research Center’s final pre-election poll of 1,925 likely voters, conducted Oct. 27-30, finds Bush with a three-point edge (48% to 45% for Kerry); Ralph Nader draws 1%, and 6% are undecided. [...]
Summary of Findings With less than a week to go before the election, many swing voters have yet to commit to a candidate, but over the past month there has been some movement among this group toward Sen. John Kerry. A Pew Research Center follow-up survey with 519 swing voters who in September were [...]
Summary of Findings Voters express increasingly positive opinions of the 2004 presidential campaign. Virtually all voters 96% believe the campaign is important, while a growing number also view the campaign as interesting. Fully two-thirds of voters (66%) describe the campaign as interesting, up from 50% in early September and just 35% in June. [...]
Summary of Findings As the campaign heads into its final stages, the presidential race is again extremely close. The latest Pew Research Center survey of 1,307 registered voters, conducted Oct. 15-19, finds President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry tied at 45%-45% among registered voters, and 47%-47% among likely voters.(1) These findings represent a [...]
Summary of Findings Amid an increasingly divisive presidential campaign, voters largely agree in their positive assessments of news coverage of the first presidential debate. Solid majorities of certain Bush voters (55%), certain Kerry supporters (62%), and swing voters (60%) rate the coverage of the debate as good or excellent. Voters also generally think that the [...]
Summary of Findings By two-to-one, voters who watched the first presidential debate believe that John Kerry prevailed. But the widely viewed Sept. 30 showdown did not result in a sea change in opinions of the candidates. As a consequence, George W. Bush continues to have a much stronger personal image than his Democratic challenger, while [...]
Summary of Findings George W. Bush has reopened a significant lead over challenger John Kerry over the past week, even as voters express less confidence in the president on Iraq and he continues to trail Kerry on the economy. Two successive nationwide surveys of nearly 1,000 registered voters each show Bush’s margin over Kerry growing [...]
Introduction and Summary Voter opinion in the presidential race has seesawed dramatically in the first two weeks of September. Following a successful nominating convention, George W. Bush broke open a deadlocked contest and jumped out to a big lead over John Kerry. However, polling this past week finds that Bush’s edge over his Democratic rival [...]
Summary of Findings With three months to go until the presidential election, the American public remains largely dissatisfied with economic conditions and with President Bush’s stewardship of the economy. Two-thirds rate the national economy as “only fair” or “poor,” while just one-third judge it to be “excellent” or “good.” Accordingly, Bush gets low ratings for [...]
The Democratic Party has achieved a small gain in party affiliation and holds a 33%-29% edge over the GOP in Pew surveys conducted in 2004. This represents a modest shift from the two year period following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when the Republican Party had drawn virtually even with the Democrats. The current [...]
Despite Sen. John Kerry’s military background and his campaign’s concerted efforts to court veterans, he runs no better among this group than Al Gore did four years ago. Based on surveys conducted March, May, June and July, men who have served in the armed forces favor Bush over Kerry by a 49% to 40% margin. [...]
Summary of Findings Sen. John Kerry enters the Democratic convention next week bolstered by a number of favorable trends in public opinion, although he remains locked in a statistical tie for voter support with President George W. Bush. His party is dominant on key domestic issues and at least competitive with the Republicans on every [...]
Lead Changes Contribute to Erroneous Perception
Summary of Findings The presidential election is capturing the public’s attention much more now than it did at this point four and eight years ago. Nearly half of Americans (47%) say they are more interested in politics than they were four years ago, up from 38% who expressed that view in June 2000. Public attention [...]
Summary of Findings There are considerably fewer swing voters now than at this point in the previous three presidential campaigns. But the swing vote, while smaller in relative terms, is still substantial and certainly large enough for a presidential candidate to win a big victory. Pew’s most recent survey, conducted June 3-13, finds 21% of [...]
Summary of Findings Americans are paying markedly less attention to Iraq than in the last two months. At the same time, their opinions about the war have become more positive. The number of Americans who think the U.S. military effort is going well has jumped from 46% in May to 57%, despite ongoing violence in [...]
Summary of Findings Public satisfaction with national conditions has fallen to 33%, its lowest level in eight years, in the wake of revelations of prisoner abuse committed by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. President Bush’s overall job approval rating also has dropped into negative territory: 44% approve of his job performance, while [...]
Summary of Findings A week’s worth of criticism of his pre-Sept. 11 record on terrorism has had little impact on President Bush’s support among voters. He is now running even with Sen. John Kerry in a head-to-head match-up among registered voters (47% Kerry- 46% Bush) after trailing Kerry by 52%-43% in mid-March. Voter opinions have [...]
Summary of Findings The long general election campaign begins with voters paying much more attention than usual and a decidedly greater number of Americans thinking that it matters who wins in the fall than felt that way four years ago. However, roughly half of Americans already say the campaign is too long, “boring” and “too [...]
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About Pew Research Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
